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Consumer Confidence

U.S. Consumer Confidence rebounded strongly in March within optimism over the labor market while house prices increased in January.

Rising confidence and home prices adds to the belief that the first-quarter slowdown will be temporary.

While consumers were less optimistic about the short-term outlook, they had greater confidence in the labor market, with the share of those anticipating more jobs in the months ahead increasing significantly. The proportion of consumers expecting income growth also rose solidly, which should help to strengthen Consumer spending.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has recently proposed additional set of measures to expand foreclosure protections for mortgage borrowers.

Currently the CFPB continues engaging in the outreach task along with consumer advocacy groups, industry representatives, and other stakeholders to develop additional provisions to protect consumers and make it easier for companies to comply with the rules. New proposals would give greater protections to mortgage borrowers.

Among these new proposals are a number of provisions to improve borrower/servicer communications and to clarify previous regulations, such as,

Protections for mortgage heirs

Servicers would be required to notify borrowers when their loss mitigation applications are complete and when their foreclosure protections kick in

The proposal offers full disclosure on “clarifications” from previous rules dealing with servicing rights transfers between firms.

Would require servicers to provide periodic loss mitigation information and other statements to borrowers in bankruptcy.

Servicing firms must also provide written early intervention notices to let those borrowers known about their loss mitigation options even after they’ve been told to stop contact.

Clarifying the meaning of “delinquency” for the purpose of its servicing rules. Delinquency begins on the day a borrower fails to make a periodic payment. If that payment is later made up, the bureau proposes that the date of delinquency should be pushed up creating room for servicers to consider a payment as “timely”.

Consumer confidence declined in September, rebounded in October and jumped more than two points in a preliminary November estimate, beating economic forecasts and hitting a more than seven-year high.

The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment registered 89.4 in a mid-month reading, the best showing since July 2007. Economists had forecast the measure would hit 87.5, with some predicting as high as 89.

What factor have contributed to this improvement? The declining of oil prices and an improving job market were probably the main factors that led to this surge in consumer sentiment. A more favorable business conditions perhaps also helped the consumers’ view of the present situation. This solid increase suggests consumers have largely dismissed concerns about slowing global growth and have ignored the sharp swings in financial markets earlier this month

US consumers expect better economic growth and rising incomes in the coming months and overall positive growth in our economy, leading to a stronger dollar and making other investments more attractive. Consumers regained confidence and are more optimistic now about their future earnings potential, and with the holiday season getting closer and closer, we may see ever higher numbers in consumer’s confidence.

What about the Housing Market? Considering that the Federal Financing Housing Agency has recently opened more doors for eligibility criteria in the purchase of homes, we expect to continue with good news about the economic outlook in general.

Consumer confidence reached its highest level since the Great Recession in September, according to the Thomson Reuters and University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers.

September’s increase in consumer confidence is the result of optimistic outlooks on the overall economy and personal incomes. The consumer expectations index rose 5.8 percent over the month of September, while the current conditions index fell 0.9 percent.

Additionally, a growing number of consumers expect their incomes to increase over the next year. The median income growth expectation reported in September was 1.1 percent, which is the highest expectation since late 2008. At the same time, more households anticipate income growth now than at any time since September 2008.

The renewal of income growth is particularly important for sparking consumer spending, and adding pending changes to monetary policy will make income gains prompt to boost even more consumer’s confidence.